Special prosecutor nominee: I was not involved in Agyapa transaction
Kissi Agyebeng tells Parliament’s appointments committee that he is no surrogate of anybody and insists that he is his own man.
Kissi Agyebeng, the special prosecutor nominee, has said he was never involved in the Agyapa gold transaction. Agyebeng says he sees those making such claims as speaking from an uninformed position.
In April this year Martin Amidu, the former special prosecutor, described Agyebeng as a surrogate of people who defended the controversial Agyapa mineral royalties transaction.
Amidu said he is looking forward to “see how independently and impartially” Agyebeng will handle the Agyapa Royalties transaction.
“Anybody deeply knowledgeable about the Agyapa Royalties Transaction Corruption Risk Assessment report which resulted in my eventual resignation as the first Special Prosecutor knows that one of the beneficiaries of the Agyapa Royalties Transaction is Africa Legal Associates whose contract to participate in the transaction was found to be contrary to the Public Procurement Act and tainted by bid rigging,” Amidu wrote.
“Until 20th March 2020 Agyapa Royalties Limited was incorporated as Asaase Royalties Limited on 5th November 2019 in Jersey, the United Kingdom. Anybody who cares to know, knows that the alter ego of Africa Legal Associates is a cousin of the President who also established Asaase Radio which began official transmission on 14th June 2020.
“The Agyapa Royalties Transaction records show the role the President’s cousin who established Africa Legal Associates, and Asaase Radio played with White & Case LLP, of London, one of the foreign law firms in the suspected corruption transaction,” Amidu said.
“Uninformed position”
But, reacting to this assertion by the former special prosecutor, Agyebeng told the appointments committee of Parliament on Thursday that “whoever says I’m a surrogate of a law firm [or] implicate[s] me in the Agyapa transaction clearly does not know me, because if you know me you wouldn’t make such allegation. And so all these things that came up, I took it as coming from an uninformed position, because I was not involved in the Agyapa transaction in any form or manner, or [by] any stretch of the imagination, however fertile.
“As for relationships, as I just disclosed, if I was so close to you at some point in our lives, that does not mean you will give me a free pass because of that relationship. And that is why I’m here … if there is a matter, I’m not going to say because I know one person or the other I’m going to give the person a free pass. I will certainly investigate, because the truth of the matter ought to be told,” Agyebeng said.
He added, “I wasn’t involved in the deal; I was nowhere near it. Indeed, until it started coming up, I didn’t even know what it was. For the record, that is the truth.
“So, I’m no one’s surrogate. As I said earlier, I’m my own man and I prefer to wear my own shoes.”
Source: asaaseradio.com
